Jakobs 2023 season vs Noahs 2023 season (I think Jakob's was better)

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:

High hopes wrote:

The problem for Jakob is that he had his best results in events that only running nerds care about. The 2 mile WR, 2k WR, and mile European Record are great but they aren't events that anyone cares about outside of narrow distance running circles. Lyles won the sprint treble and didn't rely on off-distance races like 150m or 300m to garland his season.

It also doesn't help Jakob that his female equivalent, Faith Kipyegon, did the exact same double that Jakob was going for, and broke the World Records in the championship distances that people actually care about.

Overall, I would agree that Jakob has better results across the season, but Lyles was the best when it mattered most, which is what matters for AOTY

I think this is a fair take, though I think running a 3:43 mile/7:23 double and 3:27.1 1500 people are performances people do care about. Doing the 2K/2mile as opposed to taking on the more prestigious 3K record and a sub-12:40 5K probably hurt some of the perception. Ultimately falling short at Worlds was the problem though. I still think he had the greater season by a lot, but as you said the voters put a huge amount of stock on championship performance. I think it's OK that the OP thinks that this is flawed and wrong. You could probably make these awards a lot better with just making it:

Field Athlete of the Year (M/F) - Crouser/Mondo, Mahuchikh/Rojas
Track/Roads/XC Athlete of the Year (M/F) - Kiptum/Jakob (a very good debate), Kipyegon/Hassan (probably Kipyegon)

End of Worlds announce like how all other major competitions end with this:
Worlds MVP (M) - Lyles
Worlds MVP (F) - Kipyegon

Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:

First of all, congratulations to Lyles for winning athlete of the year. Totally deserving winner and this isn't about painting a picture of him being undeserving. But I was running yesterday and thinking about his season versus Jakobs and ultimately landed on not being convinced that his 2023 season was either greater or better than Ingebrigtsens. I know the controversy of Jakob not even being a finalist has been addressed already but now we actually know the winner I thought it would be interesting to objectively compare both seasons.

And yeah like many of us here I am a distance guy but I have no problem acknowledging excellence across all disciplines. I personally know Noah, worked with him for a decent period of time on some stuff and he's a good kid so I have nothing against him at all. Just not sure his 2023 was better....

Lyles jewel in the crown is obviously the 100-200 double at the worlds and that's a great achievement but not exactly rare. Maurice Green, Justin Gatlin and Tyson Gay did it once and Bolt did it 3 times (probably would have been 4 if not for a false start in Daegu) so it's happened 6/19 times or approximately 1/3 of the time at the Worlds alone. He was unbeaten over 200m this season and despite winning the world title on scraped into the team finishing 3rd at the trials over 100m. Time wise he ran 19.47 which is 10AT, 19.52 which is 14AT and 19.67 which is 40AT.

Jakob obviously failed at his double - but only just and it's historically a far rarer and more difficult one to achieve -still to this day only Lagat has done it (07) at the world championships (Nurmi did it in 24, El G in 04 at Olympic Games). Point is it's hard and Jakob missed it by 0.28 of a second. But then it's hard to see how Jakobs season doesn't draw even with Lyles's and then pull markedly away. He won every other race outdoors over multiple distances. He ran the #3AT time in the 1500m* (asterisk because no chance I'm keeping Kiprops time in there). Ran a sub 3.44 mile which is 3AT, broke the 2000m WR that was held by the 1500m, mile WR holder and second fastest man ever over 3000m (ie. it's a quality record), ran the second fastest 3000m ever en-route to his 2mile WR which broke the record of a guy some believe to be the most naturally gifted MD runner in history (Komen) and then officially the 3AT over 3000m a day after running 3.43 which capped surely the most incredible back to back days of running maybe ever seen over any distance in history.

Summary: Lyles has a WC double and a really solid season of performances but by any metric, unspectacular. Jakob has failed WC double (albeit a more difficult one) and a season of quite honestly spectacular performances. So unless there are metrics off the track that WA uses in the criteria for this award (are there? - social media presence?), I just could not sit here and make a logical and rational case that Noah Lyles had a greater or better season than Jakob Ingebrigtsens.

Or maybe I'm missing something or another POV?

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:

High hopes wrote:

The problem for Jakob is that he had his best results in events that only running nerds care about. The 2 mile WR, 2k WR, and mile European Record are great but they aren't events that anyone cares about outside of narrow distance running circles. Lyles won the sprint treble and didn't rely on off-distance races like 150m or 300m to garland his season.

It also doesn't help Jakob that his female equivalent, Faith Kipyegon, did the exact same double that Jakob was going for, and broke the World Records in the championship distances that people actually care about.

Overall, I would agree that Jakob has better results across the season, but Lyles was the best when it mattered most, which is what matters for AOTY

I think this is a fair take, though I think running a 3:43 mile/7:23 double and 3:27.1 1500 people are performances people do care about. Doing the 2K/2mile as opposed to taking on the more prestigious 3K record and a sub-12:40 5K probably hurt some of the perception. Ultimately falling short at Worlds was the problem though. I still think he had the greater season by a lot, but as you said the voters put a huge amount of stock on championship performance. I think it's OK that the OP thinks that this is flawed and wrong. You could probably make these awards a lot better with just making it:

Field Athlete of the Year (M/F) - Crouser/Mondo, Mahuchikh/Rojas
Track/Roads/XC Athlete of the Year (M/F) - Kiptum/Jakob (a very good debate), Kipyegon/Hassan (probably Kipyegon)

End of Worlds announce like how all other major competitions end with this:
Worlds MVP (M) - Lyles
Worlds MVP (F) - Kipyegon

High hopes wrote:

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:

I think this is a fair take, though I think running a 3:43 mile/7:23 double and 3:27.1 1500 people are performances people do care about. Doing the 2K/2mile as opposed to taking on the more prestigious 3K record and a sub-12:40 5K probably hurt some of the perception. Ultimately falling short at Worlds was the problem though. I still think he had the greater season by a lot, but as you said the voters put a huge amount of stock on championship performance. I think it's OK that the OP thinks that this is flawed and wrong. You could probably make these awards a lot better with just making it:

Field Athlete of the Year (M/F) - Crouser/Mondo, Mahuchikh/Rojas
Track/Roads/XC Athlete of the Year (M/F) - Kiptum/Jakob (a very good debate), Kipyegon/Hassan (probably Kipyegon)

End of Worlds announce like how all other major competitions end with this:
Worlds MVP (M) - Lyles
Worlds MVP (F) - Kipyegon

I agree on your first point, and the mile has some historical significance, but the 7:23? That's one for running nerds. No one outside of track circles knows what a good 3k time is. Jakob didn't deliver in his premium event when it mattered - no one cares which NBA team has the best regular season record, people only remember who wins the playoffs.

Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:

First of all, congratulations to Lyles for winning athlete of the year. Totally deserving winner and this isn't about painting a picture of him being undeserving. But I was running yesterday and thinking about his season versus Jakobs and ultimately landed on not being convinced that his 2023 season was either greater or better than Ingebrigtsens. I know the controversy of Jakob not even being a finalist has been addressed already but now we actually know the winner I thought it would be interesting to objectively compare both seasons.

And yeah like many of us here I am a distance guy but I have no problem acknowledging excellence across all disciplines. I personally know Noah, worked with him for a decent period of time on some stuff and he's a good kid so I have nothing against him at all. Just not sure his 2023 was better....

Lyles jewel in the crown is obviously the 100-200 double at the worlds and that's a great achievement but not exactly rare. Maurice Green, Justin Gatlin and Tyson Gay did it once and Bolt did it 3 times (probably would have been 4 if not for a false start in Daegu) so it's happened 6/19 times or approximately 1/3 of the time at the Worlds alone. He was unbeaten over 200m this season and despite winning the world title on scraped into the team finishing 3rd at the trials over 100m. Time wise he ran 19.47 which is 10AT, 19.52 which is 14AT and 19.67 which is 40AT.

Jakob obviously failed at his double - but only just and it's historically a far rarer and more difficult one to achieve -still to this day only Lagat has done it (07) at the world championships (Nurmi did it in 24, El G in 04 at Olympic Games). Point is it's hard and Jakob missed it by 0.28 of a second. But then it's hard to see how Jakobs season doesn't draw even with Lyles's and then pull markedly away. He won every other race outdoors over multiple distances. He ran the #3AT time in the 1500m* (asterisk because no chance I'm keeping Kiprops time in there). Ran a sub 3.44 mile which is 3AT, broke the 2000m WR that was held by the 1500m, mile WR holder and second fastest man ever over 3000m (ie. it's a quality record), ran the second fastest 3000m ever en-route to his 2mile WR which broke the record of a guy some believe to be the most naturally gifted MD runner in history (Komen) and then officially the 3AT over 3000m a day after running 3.43 which capped surely the most incredible back to back days of running maybe ever seen over any distance in history.

Summary: Lyles has a WC double and a really solid season of performances but by any metric, unspectacular. Jakob has failed WC double (albeit a more difficult one) and a season of quite honestly spectacular performances. So unless there are metrics off the track that WA uses in the criteria for this award (are there? - social media presence?), I just could not sit here and make a logical and rational case that Noah Lyles had a greater or better season than Jakob Ingebrigtsens.

Or maybe I'm missing something or another POV?

High hopes wrote:

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:

I think this is a fair take, though I think running a 3:43 mile/7:23 double and 3:27.1 1500 people are performances people do care about. Doing the 2K/2mile as opposed to taking on the more prestigious 3K record and a sub-12:40 5K probably hurt some of the perception. Ultimately falling short at Worlds was the problem though. I still think he had the greater season by a lot, but as you said the voters put a huge amount of stock on championship performance. I think it's OK that the OP thinks that this is flawed and wrong. You could probably make these awards a lot better with just making it:

Field Athlete of the Year (M/F) - Crouser/Mondo, Mahuchikh/Rojas
Track/Roads/XC Athlete of the Year (M/F) - Kiptum/Jakob (a very good debate), Kipyegon/Hassan (probably Kipyegon)

End of Worlds announce like how all other major competitions end with this:
Worlds MVP (M) - Lyles
Worlds MVP (F) - Kipyegon

I agree on your first point, and the mile has some historical significance, but the 7:23? That's one for running nerds. No one outside of track circles knows what a good 3k time is. Jakob didn't deliver in his premium event when it mattered - no one cares which NBA team has the best regular season record, people only remember who wins the playoffs.

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:

I think you are not wrong that Jakobs season was better and rarer. Sprint doubles/triples in this case happen, and Noah didn’t have the outstanding 200m time that he ran last year, let alone a historic 100m mark. Noah did deliver better at Worlds and was man of the meet I think we can agree. Fair or not, there is a ton of focus on the sprints and someone coming in to be a Bolt successor. There has been less focus on a next mid-distance superstar in the same vein after El Guerrouj. Noahs double was also newer than Jakobs double/dominant running (though I agree it took a major jump in 2023). Ultimately, it becomes a narrative award and they chose Lyles because he exceeded expectations in the marquee event (the 100) on the biggest stage while Jakob stumbled in his marquee event on the same stage. Fair? Maybe not, but I get it.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:

Okay so here is another potential way to look at it.

If Jakob is 0.28 seconds better in the 1500m and wins that event and does the 1500/5000m double at the worlds, who was the male track athlete of the year? It's Jakob by an absolute mile (figuratively speaking). That's because his entire body of work is simply much much better. This one loss - again, weighting one or two races so heavily is easy to do but not necessarily fair to athletes given they are only human and (as hard as this is to believe) can have bad days too - simply can't detract enough from a truly historic season that was considerably better allround than even a very very good season from Lyles.

But it isn't just "the one loss" - the whole year was geared towards that race. Everything - his status - hung on the final. Regrettably, for his fans, it didn't work out.

An athlete's standing in the sport can hinge on a single race. The rest of the year/season pales into relative insignificance (not that I would say that about two world records). An example I might give, in the distant past, was the confrontation between Bannister and Landy at Vancouver in '54, the much heralded "Mile of the Century". Bannister had broken the "4 minute barrier" earlier that year, Landy had reduced the record further. Vancouver decided who was supreme. It was Bannister. Just one race. But a career defining victory. Jakob's loss in Paris was similar - but negatively impacting his standing in the sport. The truly great have to win the races that matter most. Lyles did.

Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:

First of all, congratulations to Lyles for winning athlete of the year. Totally deserving winner and this isn't about painting a picture of him being undeserving. But I was running yesterday and thinking about his season versus Jakobs and ultimately landed on not being convinced that his 2023 season was either greater or better than Ingebrigtsens. I know the controversy of Jakob not even being a finalist has been addressed already but now we actually know the winner I thought it would be interesting to objectively compare both seasons.

And yeah like many of us here I am a distance guy but I have no problem acknowledging excellence across all disciplines. I personally know Noah, worked with him for a decent period of time on some stuff and he's a good kid so I have nothing against him at all. Just not sure his 2023 was better....

Lyles jewel in the crown is obviously the 100-200 double at the worlds and that's a great achievement but not exactly rare. Maurice Green, Justin Gatlin and Tyson Gay did it once and Bolt did it 3 times (probably would have been 4 if not for a false start in Daegu) so it's happened 6/19 times or approximately 1/3 of the time at the Worlds alone. He was unbeaten over 200m this season and despite winning the world title on scraped into the team finishing 3rd at the trials over 100m. Time wise he ran 19.47 which is 10AT, 19.52 which is 14AT and 19.67 which is 40AT.

Jakob obviously failed at his double - but only just and it's historically a far rarer and more difficult one to achieve -still to this day only Lagat has done it (07) at the world championships (Nurmi did it in 24, El G in 04 at Olympic Games). Point is it's hard and Jakob missed it by 0.28 of a second. But then it's hard to see how Jakobs season doesn't draw even with Lyles's and then pull markedly away. He won every other race outdoors over multiple distances. He ran the #3AT time in the 1500m* (asterisk because no chance I'm keeping Kiprops time in there). Ran a sub 3.44 mile which is 3AT, broke the 2000m WR that was held by the 1500m, mile WR holder and second fastest man ever over 3000m (ie. it's a quality record), ran the second fastest 3000m ever en-route to his 2mile WR which broke the record of a guy some believe to be the most naturally gifted MD runner in history (Komen) and then officially the 3AT over 3000m a day after running 3.43 which capped surely the most incredible back to back days of running maybe ever seen over any distance in history.

Summary: Lyles has a WC double and a really solid season of performances but by any metric, unspectacular. Jakob has failed WC double (albeit a more difficult one) and a season of quite honestly spectacular performances. So unless there are metrics off the track that WA uses in the criteria for this award (are there? - social media presence?), I just could not sit here and make a logical and rational case that Noah Lyles had a greater or better season than Jakob Ingebrigtsens.

Or maybe I'm missing something or another POV?

Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:

First of all, congratulations to Lyles for winning athlete of the year. Totally deserving winner and this isn't about painting a picture of him being undeserving. But I was running yesterday and thinking about his season versus Jakobs and ultimately landed on not being convinced that his 2023 season was either greater or better than Ingebrigtsens. I know the controversy of Jakob not even being a finalist has been addressed already but now we actually know the winner I thought it would be interesting to objectively compare both seasons.

And yeah like many of us here I am a distance guy but I have no problem acknowledging excellence across all disciplines. I personally know Noah, worked with him for a decent period of time on some stuff and he's a good kid so I have nothing against him at all. Just not sure his 2023 was better....

Lyles jewel in the crown is obviously the 100-200 double at the worlds and that's a great achievement but not exactly rare. Maurice Green, Justin Gatlin and Tyson Gay did it once and Bolt did it 3 times (probably would have been 4 if not for a false start in Daegu) so it's happened 6/19 times or approximately 1/3 of the time at the Worlds alone. He was unbeaten over 200m this season and despite winning the world title on scraped into the team finishing 3rd at the trials over 100m. Time wise he ran 19.47 which is 10AT, 19.52 which is 14AT and 19.67 which is 40AT.

Jakob obviously failed at his double - but only just and it's historically a far rarer and more difficult one to achieve -still to this day only Lagat has done it (07) at the world championships (Nurmi did it in 24, El G in 04 at Olympic Games). Point is it's hard and Jakob missed it by 0.28 of a second. But then it's hard to see how Jakobs season doesn't draw even with Lyles's and then pull markedly away. He won every other race outdoors over multiple distances. He ran the #3AT time in the 1500m* (asterisk because no chance I'm keeping Kiprops time in there). Ran a sub 3.44 mile which is 3AT, broke the 2000m WR that was held by the 1500m, mile WR holder and second fastest man ever over 3000m (ie. it's a quality record), ran the second fastest 3000m ever en-route to his 2mile WR which broke the record of a guy some believe to be the most naturally gifted MD runner in history (Komen) and then officially the 3AT over 3000m a day after running 3.43 which capped surely the most incredible back to back days of running maybe ever seen over any distance in history.

Summary: Lyles has a WC double and a really solid season of performances but by any metric, unspectacular. Jakob has failed WC double (albeit a more difficult one) and a season of quite honestly spectacular performances. So unless there are metrics off the track that WA uses in the criteria for this award (are there? - social media presence?), I just could not sit here and make a logical and rational case that Noah Lyles had a greater or better season than Jakob Ingebrigtsens.

Or maybe I'm missing something or another POV?

McRunnin wrote:

Yalding wrote:

While I agree that Jakob had a better season than Lyles, it's unfair to compare them over so many disciplines. Distance runners can run much more distances while sprinters are usually concentrating on 2 events max. Lyles can't run 150m or 189m during the season. We should be comparing 100/200 and 1500/5000 between them only.

I agree with only comparing them on 100/200 and 1500/5,000 (which also helps Jakob because that means we’re not looking at the gold medal Lyles won in the relay). If we only look at those events, it’s close but the edge goes to Lyles.

Let’s compare their regular season and then world championships.

Regular season: They both went undefeated and ran fast times but didn’t break records in their primary event. Draw

Lyles ran a bunch of races in his off-event and lost several times, however, he did pick up a Diamond League win in the 100 in Paris. Jakob didn’t contest any regular season 5,000 races. Would he have won those 12:40-12:41 races? We can only speculate. We know Lyles won a Diamond League race in his off-event, and Jakob didn’t. Advantage Lyles.

World championships: Obviously advantage Lyles.

Overall: Advantage Lyles but Jakob definitely should have been a finalist. He had an outstanding season.

McRunnin wrote:

Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:

Okay so here is another potential way to look at it.

If Jakob is 0.28 seconds better in the 1500m and wins that event and does the 1500/5000m double at the worlds, who was the male track athlete of the year? It's Jakob by an absolute mile (figuratively speaking). That's because his entire body of work is simply much much better. This one loss - again, weighting one or two races so heavily is easy to do but not necessarily fair to athletes given they are only human and (as hard as this is to believe) can have bad days too - simply can't detract enough from a truly historic season that was considerably better allround than even a very very good season from Lyles.

That’s how it works in sports. Seasons and careers are evaluated primarily by how athletes do in championship competition. Championships and, consequently, legacies are often decided by slim margins.

Think about the 2007 New England Patriots going undefeated in the regular season but then losing in the Super Bowl thanks to the incredible Helmet Catch. That play and that loss destroyed their claim to being the greatest NFL team of all time.

The greatest athletes are revered not just for winning in dominant fashion but also for finding a way to eke out a victory in the clutch. Think Phelps winning one of his 8 gold medals in Beijing by a finger nail, Jordan hitting that iconic game winner to capture his 6th title, and Geb beating Tergat by just 0.09 in the 2000 Olympic 10,000. Those types of pivotal moments stand out the most and cement legacies.